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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29550126">then you will return</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseofhighgarden/pseuds/roseofhighgarden'>roseofhighgarden</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Daenerys Targaryen Deserves Better, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Daenerys Targaryen Lives, Daenerys Targaryen Needs A Hug, Daenerys Targaryen Stays In Essos, Daenerys Targaryen Will Forgive Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen is Aegon the Conqueror with Tits, Daenerys Targaryen's Fire Immunity Has An Explanation, Daenerys Targaryen-centric, Essos (A Song of Ice and Fire), Essos Is Daenerys Targaryen's Home, F/M, Fix-It, Jon Snow is Azor Ahai, Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Khal Drogo Knows What's Up, Khal Drogo Lives, Khal Drogo is Visenya, Khal Drogo is a Changed Man, Multi, No Beta We Die Like D&amp;D's Career, Past Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Polyandry, R Plus L Equals J | Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen are Jon Snow's Parents, Reformed Khal Drogo, Retcon, Rhaego Lives (ASoIaF), Show-canon Unburnt Daenerys, Targaryen-Blackfyre Alliance, Targaryen-Blackfyre Convergence, The Afterlife Has A TV, The Dragons Have New Names, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travelling Daenerys Targaryen, Time Travelling Khal Drogo, Varys is a Blackfyre, Young Griff is Rhaenys, Young Griff is a Blackfyre, fAegon - Freeform, fAegon is a Blackfyre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:21:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,571</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29550126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseofhighgarden/pseuds/roseofhighgarden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mirri Maz Duur never lied.<br/>Only death can pay for life.<br/>But that life hadn't been Khal Drogo's.<br/>It had been her own.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aegon Blackfyre/Daenerys Targaryen, Daario Naharis/Ornela, Grey Worm/Missandei, Irri/Rakharo (ASoIaF), Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen, Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen/Aegon Blackfyre, Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen/Young Griff, Young Griff/Daenerys Targaryen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. her last words</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is my own work reposted from wattpad. i have the same username there if you wanna send some love 🖤</p><p>please comment there or here if you like this! idk how the fandom will take this but i wanted to give the idea a shot. be warned tho: this is a short story with minimal dialogue. BUT if you like this au lmk and i'll do a longer one with different ship/s and plot/s. there's so much potential with time-travel daenerys tbh. . .</p><p><strong>16/03/21:</strong> yeah nah it's gonna be a long ass story ✌😗 buckle up bois!</p><p>here are the minor changes to s8 apart from the obvious:<br/>⠀♞⠀dany's death is not as quick as it was in canon. i put the gifs in to rework that "death" scene. ffs they had arya get stabbed multiple times by a FACELESS fkn MAN, jump into a shit-filled body of water, and walk through an entire city without dying of sepsis or blood loss? and jon took several stabs "for the watch" before he died but nah, get rekt mad queen dany?<br/>⠀♞⠀dany's sudden madness is kinda sus and you'll find out why soon enough.<br/>⠀♞⠀drogon doesn't travel to volantis with dany's dead body. she'd be lady stoneheart 2.0 by the time he gets there. not that it matters since, ya know, time travel.<br/>⠀♞⠀cersei is alive. so is jaime. they escaped the destruction of the red keep/burning of king's landing (do we have a name for it? idk i blanked out throughout that whole mess) and now has a chance to die by maggy the frog's prophecy. my bet's on jaime since tyrion's living it up being bran's wheelchair pushe- i mean hand of the king.<br/>⠀♞⠀gregor clegane is executed by dragonfire. sorry not sorry, hound. you'll get your chance in the next life.<br/>⠀♞⠀boatbaby. but rhaego will be replacing him soon. also he'll be renamed soon because fuck rhaegar. as a targaryen, he is within his rights to take a second wife and he annuls his perfectly valid and fruitful marriage with elia? asshole.</p><p>but again, all that doesn't matter bc retcon. the horses on the bullets are me running away from the fuckery d&amp;d made out of s8. bye.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fire and blood was her family words.</p><p>Fire and blood will be its end.</p><p>
  
</p><p>The taste of blood was on her tongue. The kiss of steel had put it there. Part of her had known, like the rest of the ungrateful Northerners that were his people, that Jon Snow was not a type of man to simply <em>give</em>, no matter how much one had done for them. She should've known his lips had been a trick. A distraction.</p><p>But she didn't.</p><p>Now Valyria will die with her. For it surely won't live on through a vessel as spineless as her supposed nephew, whose fire had long been doused by those Tully women first, and its ashes spread on the Wall thinking itself ice.</p><p>Somewhere in the room, dragonfire. Charred bones had a smell to it that she was expecting, but even her son hadn't seen it fit to feast on the crow turned king. The dagger in her chest seemed to twist at the thought of her Drogon sparing Jon to replace her for his rider.</p><p>Her only consolation is the smell of melted steel in the air.</p><p>
  <em>If I can't sit on that Iron Throne, neither will he. No one will.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Death took a long time. Longer than she thought. She almost envied Ned Stark. A beheading would've further defiled her body more than Jon Snow and his Lord's kiss on that damn ship, but it would've been quick.</p><p>She knew the Seven Hells awaited her today, for burning King's Landing. For burning many of her people. All those men, women, and children, that she'd sworn to liberate in Westeros, like in Mereen.</p><p><em>"Children — little children — burned!" </em>Jon Snow had told her, only moments before deeming her too dangerous to survive.</p><p>She finally succeeded where her father, the Mad King, failed.</p><p>Her braid itched, begging to be cut. Dothraki customs have it that khals only cut their hair after a defeat in battle. She was a khaleesi, she once told herself, so she'd never cut hers.</p><p>Not when her traitorous Hand, Tyrion Lannister, lost her three kingdoms to Euron Greyjoy. <em>A pirate, of all people</em>.</p><p>Not even now, while she lay bleeding to death from a lover's betrayal, did she desire her silver locks shortened.</p><p>Her defeat took place when Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name, Mother of Dragons, lost herself.</p><p>Her passion. Her purpose.</p><p><em>What have I done</em> <em>?</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Daenerys would weep if she could. As her life drained away from her, so did the burning madness in her blood.</p><p>Agony took its place. Guilt, more so.</p><p>Not to appease any gods. She wasn't a pious woman. Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men, if her dead brother Viserys was to be believed.</p><p>Her sorrow was for the souls who died by her own orders. By her own dragonfire, which she swore would never devour the innocent. Should the gods allow it, she sought to meet each one. Beg for their forgiveness.</p><p>But it wasn't meant to be.</p><p>Suddenly, the voice of a maegi — the first of her victims, Daenerys realized — echoed in her head. Small, yet ever foreboding, even in death.</p><p>She tried to drown it out at first.</p><p><em>I will not ask for your forgiveness, </em>she told the maegi in her mind. She would be defiant on that, if needs be. Mirri Maz Duur was not innocent. She had murdered Daenerys' unborn babe Rhaego in her womb after his father's wound festered under her care.</p><p>A smaller voice that sounded deceivingly like the six-and-ten girl-child that she had been before she was forcefully wed, whispered something else. <em>But Mirri Maz Duur, too, was a victim of war.</em></p><p>A war that Viserys, and later Daenerys, had encouraged Khal Drogo to evoke.</p><p>A war that required ships, and coin, and other treasures to trade with the Masters she despised, that her younger self once tolerated taking from innocent people like the Lhazareens.</p><p>In her mind, the maegi smiled at her understanding.</p><p>So Daenerys decided to listen.</p><p>
  <b> <em>When the sun rises in the west, and sets in the east. . .</em> </b>
</p><p><em>The sun has risen</em>, Daenerys agreed, <em>in Cersei Lannister</em>. 'Light of the West' had been one of her many names. In her alienation from all the kingdoms, her only option for survival had been Essos. And so East was where Cersei's life would set. East was where the Lion Queen would meet her demise.</p><p>The irony of it wasn't lost on her. Now Essos has a new exiled royal after the loss of another. Daenerys wondered if her honorable nephew will send any assassins after her, or if Cersei's own brother Tyrion will do the deed for him to curry favor with the new king.</p><p>
  <b> <em>When the seas go dry. . .</em> </b>
</p><p>Hearing the prophecy from lifetimes ago seemed like a hallucination of a dying woman, but it was starting to make more and more sense to her.</p><p>A sea <em>went</em> dry. But its contents were never saltwater — or "poison water," according to her Dothraki — but the khalasars Daenerys had taken from the Dothraki sea, after burning the khals in Vaes Dothrak. The grasslands she had grown to appreciate during her immersion into their culture was also more brown when they left it.</p><p>
  <b> <em>. . .and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. . .</em> </b>
</p><p>Dragonfire made flesh melt away like leaves to the wind. And Daenerys had executed a man named the Mountain. Ser Gregor Clegane was guilty of the murder of her good-sister Elia Martell and her children Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen. <em>It is known</em>. He needed no trial.</p><p>
  <b> <em>When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. . .</em> </b>
</p><p>This gave Daenerys pause. The maegi had told her she would never bear a living child. She had been so sure. Daenerys had her fair share of lovers, and none of their seeds took root. The last time she had lain with Jon had been back on the boat. But her moonblood, irregular it may be, should have arrived sometime between the not-Long Night, and after the scorpion that killed her other dragon Rhaegal.</p><p>And Varys had been trying to poison her food. . .</p><p>Oh, their babe. Their child. </p><p>It made no difference now. Whether she had eaten the food or not, there was no hope for the babe. Daenerys was dying. <em>It will die along with me. </em></p><p>But there was no time to grieve.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Drogon, while she was yet occupied, had taken her limp body in his jaws and flew. Not to Volantis, as some of the more knowledgeable in the dark magicks said, but onto Dragonstone, where both mother and son had felt like home.</p><p>There, paralysis was overtaken by darkness, while she welcomed the bittersweet reprieve of death. . .</p><p>
  <b> <em>Then he will return, and not before.</em> </b>
</p><p>When Daenerys Targaryen opened her eyes again, she was in Pentos, looking into the coal-black eyes of her Khal.</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. her next life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There wasn't much Daenerys could do. Whether in her new life or in the old one, she started off the powerless princess at the mercy of her brother. Therefore much of the original events happened in the same order.</p><p>Her first marriage happened not long after her awakening.</p><p>Khal Drogo was a necessary evil. Yes, she had loved him. She had loved him not as a slave loved his slaver, but as a woman loved a man, but he had been her slaver all the same.</p><p>Yet he was her sole connection to the Dothraki, one of <em>her</em> people. Though it had happened in another life, she still thought the horse-riding nomads hers. And their short marriage was why she would be seen as one of them.</p><p>It was the only way Daenerys would later be accepted as a prophesy come true: as the Stallion who Mounts the World.</p><p>Many have thought Drogon to be it. The dragons are her children; many have heard these words. But none of her fire-breathing children emerged from the burning temple of the Dosh Khaleen, to be bowed down to by all the known khalasars in the world.</p><p><em>She </em>was the Stallion who Mounts the World.</p><p>But as Mirri Maz Duur had festered the wound on Drogo, causing him to fall off his horse and lose his 40,000 bloodriders, Jon Snow had tossed Daenerys Stormborn off her saddle one word at a time.</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>Three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .</b>
  </em>
</p><p>Words from the House of the Undying came back to her. Both the maegi and Ser Jorah Mormont had fulfilled those first two treasons. It should have been a warning to Daenerys when she fell in love, or at least when her nephew started to become more distant, that he would betray her soon enough.</p><p>But it mattered not. It will not happen again. She shook the thoughts away, and spurred her horse to ride faster.</p><p>Daenerys had expected the maegi or perhaps even a Red Priestess to meet her after her wild resurrection. None came. Mirri Maz Duur herself might not be aware of her existence at this very moment.</p><p>She was alone.</p><p>Not on her marriage bed — Daenerys had eagerly used her womanly tricks learned from the Doreah of the past on Khal Drogo early on. Instead of being taken from behind as a Lyseni bed slave, or a dog rutting a bitch, she had taken control over their wedding night, and Drogo had loved her for it. Just as she knew he would.</p><p>Because of it, she had better control over her horselord husband, though she need not use it. She will never be accepted in Westeros with a savage like him or Viserys for a king.</p><p>Not for a lack of friends — Irri and Jhiqui were still alive in this world. Doreah she would never trust again, though she valued her company and did her best to protect her traitorous handmaiden from Viserys, who she had been sleeping with.</p><p>Ser Jorah, her Bear, was still spying for the usurper Robert Baratheon, so Daenerys allowed him close enough to earn his loyalty, but not enough to endanger herself should some things change and he, like Jon Snow, betray her to her death.</p><p>In this life, she was no simpering lady. She was unsure if Ser Jorah of the past life had been bound to her with true loyalty, or the memory of the girl who cried herself to sleep after her and the Khal's nocturnal activities. Men loved the idea of being a woman's savior.</p><p>Where Daenerys was alone in was the matter of the future — particularly of the fact that she had lived it already.</p><p>She was alone.</p><p>She had no clue how she escaped the clutches of death and travelled back in time to the start of her life.</p><p>She had no clue whether she had Mirri Maz Duur to thank, or perhaps another Red Priestess in Dragonstone, the same as Melisandre.</p><p>And she had no clue if the changes she had made, however small they may be, would change the future.</p><p>Would endearing Drogo to herself earlier on keep her from becoming the conquering queen, abolishing slavery in Astapor, Yunkai, and Mereen?</p><p>Would Ser Jorah turn on her upon seeing her relatively happy union with the horselord, seeing no good reason to follow her as queen with little chance to win her heart?</p><p>Would she still go mad in the end?</p><p>Should Viserys die again?</p><p>Her smallest and sweetest dragon, Viserion, had been killed by the Night King beyond the Wall for lack of his own rider. Horses are much more vulnerable in battles when left to fend for their own, this Daenerys learns, and so are dragons. Viserion needed a rider. Who better than his namesake?</p><p>However, Viserys was <em>mad</em>.</p><p>Madder than Daenerys had been back when she had burned King's Landing.</p><p>He would have burned the city to the ground as soon as they set foot in the continent.</p><p>He would have burned their nephew for refusing to bend the knee before hearing his petition to aid the battle against the Night King and his White Walkers.</p><p>He would have been another Mad King to depose, another Mad King who will wipe the Targaryen name from the face of the earth for good.</p><p>Daenerys may be mad herself. But by now, she knew guilt like an old friend. Guilt and grief. Viserys did not have it. Where Daenerys ignored the cries of the low-born as they were disfigured and disintegrated by her dragonfire, he would have laughed wickedly and enjoyed their torment.</p><p>Perhaps even been aroused by it, as their kingly father had been.</p><p>But the Daenerys on dragonback that day had been filled with unholy rage. All she could see was the cold faces of Sansa and Arya Stark. The Northman that Jon Snow had smiled at when he spat at her. The ungrateful wasteland that had undermined her losses while saving them from an enemy as frozen as their hearts, who used her until she had nothing left, and still could not at least muster up some gratitude.</p><p>The way Varys the Spider had turned on her was deplorable. So was the talk about the supposed "rightful" heir to the Iron Throne.</p><p>There was no rightful heir. Robert Baratheon had won the throne by conquest. Then the Lannisters did, through Queen Cersei birthing no legitimate offspring with her king before killing him and his bastard children.</p><p>Daenerys was meant to take it the same way. But it seemed her Small Council had forgotten this with the prospect of a malleable male to be named king.</p><p>In her outrage, she too had forgotten.</p><p>To the point that it was all she could think about. Breaking the wheel for the discrimination that kept the able women and children from those that are <em>rightfully</em> theirs, from their more simple needs like food and shelter to the more intricate like leading their own Houses. People who valued the parentage or blood of the nobles like Sansa Stark were detrimental to such plans.</p><p>To the point that Daenerys never even cared for all the bodies littering King's Landing, unlike the 163 slave children that had been crucified by the Masters of Mereen.</p><p>The children she had looked upon — each and every one of their faces, she committed to memory — before Jorah and her Unsullied had buried them all with dignity, without their chains.</p><p>Daenerys still did not understand the viciousness that had washed over her atop Drogon in King's Landing. All she knew was that the actions following it were an atrocity. She was almost like a woman possessed by a demon not unlike the one she had heard Stannis Baratheon have Melisandre use to kill his brother Renly.</p><p>Whatever it was, she had hated herself for it ever since.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. her first order</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daenerys fell back in love with Drogo.</p><p>It was inevitable. She was ashamed of herself. Their marital relationship had been more than satisfactory. Daenerys had taught her husband the more fine aspects of love-making, and the khal's primal approach had only made them more enjoyable for the two.</p><p>But sex wasn't her only motive. She also wanted affection between them. His love.</p><p>All she had wanted was to be loved.</p><p>Thankfully, this was within his means both in the old life and in the new.</p><p>He would kiss her with a passion that she rarely saw in Dothraki couplings, but saw in the secret smiles that were exchanged between one of her khas and another of her handmaidens.</p><p>She would braid his hair, after which he would stare longingly at hers, that proved to be far too fine for his large fingers the one time he tried to return the favor.</p><p>Now, instead of it being a marriage in which Daenerys must please Drogo to gain her brother an army, it became a marriage wherein the Valyrian beauty had the horselord willing to do many, many things to keep her happy.</p><p>It was just as good as she remembered it.</p><p>She was careful to keep their affection away from the eyes of his bloodriders, who would undermine him upon any sign of weakness. She was even more careful to keep an eye on his kos, who had split Drogo's khalasar into pieces before his paralyzed body had cooled in her previous life.</p><p>All her loyal companions — her khas Aggo, Kovarro, Rakharo, and two of her handmaidens Irri and Jhiqui — were tasked to report dissatisfaction among the khalasar.</p><p>She thought to let Doreah in on this project, but feared her treacherous tendencies. An offer from a man with ambition, like a rebelling ko wanting to be khal, might sway her like Xaro Xhoan Daxos did in Qarth.</p><p>Even she had no trust in herself. Doubts had begun to form inside Daenerys every time she thought about bringing Westeros to heel.</p><p>She was <em>happy</em> here. Within the Great Grass Sea, there was no memory of a Mad King who made subjects distrust her for her blood ties to him. She had Drogo and Ser Jorah back, and many Dothraki acquaintances who became nameless to her during her conquest for the Iron Throne.</p><p>She had not burned any innocents here.</p><p>She wanted peace for herself.</p><p>However, a woman once named the Mother of Dragons was not meant for a nomadic life of mediocrity. Sooner or later, her problems would catch up to her. Drogo's khalasar would rape and pillage, and without her power from before, any attempts to thwart them would kill the man she loved.</p><p>And the dominance of a khal was temporary. Their peace is fragile. Their culture was warmongering. Anything can happen until she — not as Khaleesi of Drogo's khalasar, but of the Great Grass Sea — put a stop to it.</p><p>For now, she must nip any threats from the inside. Any dissents must extinguish itself before they led to a confrontation between Drogo and one of his bloodriders like the time when Daenerys had claimed the Lhazareen rape victims for herself.</p><p>And it began with a method that was the greatest weapon in what Tyrion Lannister once named the Game of Thrones: spying.</p><p>"Khaleesi, I can help. . ." Doreah had protested. She was right. She would have been most useful for such task, but also the most dangerous.</p><p>Doreah was still innocent. <em>Innocent</em>. Daenerys knew condemning her for the sins of her other self is the same as her being condemned for the sins of her father, or of <em>her</em> sins in King's Landing, but trust is not a thing she can afford to give freely now.</p><p>"Your place is by my side," Daenerys had lied. "And Viserys, which is more than enough trouble for you. Come," she beckoned her handmaiden to her side, "Tell me about your wondrous tales told by men."</p><p>"Yes, khaleesi."</p><p>And so she did. Doreah told her tale about the two moons procuring the first dragons. This led Daenerys into pondering about her plans with her petrified dragon eggs.</p><p>Some of her people had believed that her immunity to heat and fire was all it took to hatch her children. After all, it was a magical ability. However, she knew that this was wishful thinking. The infamous Tragedy of Summerhall had proved that fire is not enough.</p><p>
  <b> <em>Only death can pay for life.</em> </b>
</p><p>She needed Mirri Maz Duur.</p><p>Or any other maegi capable in bloodmagic.</p><p>In a place like Vaes Dothrak, where its people abhorred magic, she knew that the only way Daenerys could find one would be when her sun and stars was soon to die.</p><p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p><p>When she saw the wine merchant in the marketplace, she knew their time was deviating from the original one.</p><p>
  <em>It was too early.</em>
</p><p>But so was her pregnancy. With the timing, she must have fallen pregnant during the earlier fortnights of their trip to Vaes Dothrak, unlike the first time around.</p><p>So the usurper king Robert had acted.</p><p>The poisoning attempt in her past life had been sent by Varys after the death of Viserys. But her brother was, at the moment, <em>alive</em>. In fact, he was walking through the markets with his nose up, snidely commenting on the wares the sellers had on display as "unworthy of a king."</p><p>"Unworthy of a penniless buyer, more like," she muttered.</p><p>She had not wasted her time trying to make Viserys more comfortable with the Dothraki this time. Even when the two of them begged in the streets as a child, her brother had always turned down the commonfolk trying to offer him a trade or a shelter for a time. At first she thought him wise for it, due to the danger of assassins after them, but now she realized he simply had no respect for people who he thought was beneath his royal blood.</p><p>His parading around was how he was spotted.</p><p>Daenerys instructed her retinue to dissipate into the crowds and keep their eyes on her brother while she hid herself.</p><p>"My prince," the fat merchant greeted him, eyes as wide as saucers. He must already be thinking of the riches to be gained from this murder.</p><p>"I am the <em>king</em>," snarled Viserys. He smiled wickedly when the merchant sputtered in apology, mistaking it for fear of him. But Daenerys knew that the wine merchant truly feared was not being able to give the Targaryen targets his poisoned wine. "You are speaking to Viserys Targaryen, Third of My Name, King of the Andals and the First Men. . . You will do well to remember it, or I will have Dothraki dogs drag you out of this place!"</p><p>Ever since he had seen how quickly Daenerys had acclimated to the khal, he thought himself in control of them. Daenerys had no incidents where she exerted her superior power over him. She had no reason to. She had already found out what she was capable of.</p><p>Therefore Viserys still believed she was the sweet sister he had sold.</p><p>"My apologies, Your Grace. . ." He prostrated himself before Viserys, clearly overplaying all his begging. "Believe me, I meant no offense."</p><p>"Yet you have offended me." Viserys surveyed the merchant's wares with disdain. "For that, I require your full compensation." He tapped one of the wooden containers. "Have several of these sent to my dwellings before the sundown or I will have your head for your disrespect."</p><p>Daenerys held her breath. She knew what compensation that man had to offer.</p><p>If she thwarted the merchant's plans, her brother would live a little longer. That is, until the ritual with the Dosh Khaleen, where their khalasar would adulate the prophesied warrior in her womb. Viserys would seethe with his envy and rage, and threaten her with double-kinslaying until her husband interfered.</p><p>
  <em>"A crown for king," Drogo had growled when he poured the molten gold on her brother's silver hair.</em>
</p><p>But. . .</p><p>The death of the Beggar King would not bother Drogo, unless it bothered her.</p><p>If she involved herself in the scene, it would certainly draw her husband's attention, and he would be enraged at the weak men in their stone houses for endangering his son in her womb. He would call upon the might of his khalasar to wage war upon the Seven Kingdoms.</p><p>Their khalasar would sack people like the Lhazareens to trade the treasures they steal for ships, and history would repeat itself again.</p><p>Drogo's death. Their son's death.</p><p>Death by dehydration and exhaustion in the Red Waste for her newly-sworn khalasar.</p><p>She would see her handmaiden Irri weep over her love, Daenerys' open-minded bloodrider Rakharo, when a rival khalasar sends back his head.</p><p>The beginning of this had brought forth dragons, but must it come at such a steep price?</p><p>Are those other lives forfeit, just so she can save a brother who shared her blood?</p><p>She caught the solemn eyes of Ser Jorah. Unlike before, he made no moves to save her vicious brother.</p><p>"Your Grace," the merchant persuades him, "That Dornish swill is <em>not</em> worthy of the King of Seven Kingdoms. I have a dry red from the Arbor. . . nectar of the gods. Let me give you a cask. Your sister, the Princess Daenerys, would be appreciative of such a fine wine as well."</p><p>Viserys silenced him. "It is I who decides who I savor my wine with. The broodmare of a savage is not one of them. Give them to me."</p><p>He summoned Ser Jorah by his side, instructing him how to carry the cask to his tent as if he were a servant boy. Thankfully, the knight did not look in her direction even once to not alert Viserys of her presence.</p><p>It was a favor he did her.</p><p>That way, her brother would never know of the tears she had shed for him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. her second son</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>i think i'm gonna make this as long as possible now lmao sorry for saying it's only gonna be a one shot 👁👄👁 enjoy!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daenerys did try to dissuade Viserys from consuming the poisoned wine.</p><p>Alone, in private, where any altercation would not reach Drogo's ears like when her brother attacked her for sending Doreah to invite him to a dinner she prepared in another life.</p><p>It was two days after he met the wine merchant, succeeding the pregnancy ceremony in which she ate a stallion heart and the dosh khaleen made the prophecy of the Stallion who Mounts the World. Viserys was nowhere to be found in the audience, and Daenerys had feared he had already drunk the poisoned wine.</p><p>But he followed her into her tent the day after it, a spring to his step and color to his cheeks, healthy and well.</p><p>Viserys bragged about the peasants' acknowledgement of the rightful king. "They have heard of my army," he had grinned. "Do you see now, sweet sister, why you had to do what you must? Soon, the lords of Westeros will hear of our might. Soon, they will flock to us, lest they die by the losing side of the Usurper King."</p><p>"Yes, brother, I hear." She maintained her voice in the soft, whispery tones that she had used in Magister Illyrio Mopatis' manse, when she told the two men that she wanted to go home in her first life. In this life, she had stayed silent as they discussed her virtue being sold like a mule. "What of this wine? The merchant's? What if it were poisoned?"</p><p>She could not outright show certainty. Here, she had given him the choice whether to spare his own life or die by his pride and delusion.</p><p>"You look very much like our queen mother, speaking in this manner," her brother answered, caressing her face. But when his hands reached her chin, his long fingers tightened around her neck unexpectedly. "But you are not her. Do not think you can sway me with your girlish demeanor. Do you think I cannot see your greed? You are soiled, sweet sister, and will no longer be my queen. Therefore you are no longer entitled to the spoils of a king."</p><p>Daenerys had choked, and choked, and <em>choked</em>, vision darkening around the edges from the lack of air.</p><p>"Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I would not have seen through the merchant's tricks? I, who kept us safe and hidden from assassins since Ser Willem's death? <em>N</em><em>ever</em> presume to question my discernment ag–"</p><p>But the words had died in his mouth. Daenerys, in her blinding struggle for survival, had grasped onto a burning candle and hit her brother with it.</p><p>Viserys had screamed — "You bitch!" — and dragged her by the hair to the fire pit where she had placed all three of her dragon eggs, where he plunged half of her face into it.</p><p>A punishment unfitting, for her skin remained unmarred when he pulled her away.</p><p>Unlike his.</p><p>He threw her to the ground in terror.</p><p>As her sight returns to her, one gulp of air at a time, she saw her brother gaping at her, as if her state can give any explanation.</p><p>And all she said is: "Fire... cannot... kill... a <em>dragon</em>."</p><p>When Daenerys lost consciousness, Viserys had already fled, leaving her tent wide open.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p>
</div><p>No more tears were shed that night.</p><p>She dreams the dreams of the House of the Undying — blurred and distant but there. Some she had seen solved, and others remained unknown.</p><p>But a chanting prevailed throughout, and dimly Daenerys recognized the voice as that of the maegi she had once burned.</p><p>She had dismissed this once, when she stepped into the pyre, as the mere cries of a dying woman.</p><p>This time, she committed her chants to memory.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p>
</div><p>What time Daenerys did not spend learning how to defend herself with a dagger from Ser Jorah, she spent befriending Ornela, a khaleen she had met in her previous life when her cruel khal had died, but now that her khal was still alive, she could only be a khaleesi.</p><p>Ornela too had been Lhazareen.</p><p>Daenerys would be lying to herself if she said her motives were not driven by a need to find a way to hatch her dragon eggs, but she enjoyed the current khaleesi's company.</p><p>And it showed.</p><p>She was who Daenerys had woken up to.</p><p>"<em>My mother had been a healer in our village</em>," Ornela explained, when she asked what she was doing by her side. "<em>Her knowledge came from many — the healers that had preceded her, a Maester Marwin from Westeros, even the blood magic despised by Dothraki. Once, I had wanted to follow in her footsteps. Now I help the healers with the sick and elderly while I await the sweet embrace of death</em>."</p><p>"I am neither sick nor elderly, my friend," said Daenerys.</p><p>"<em>You are my friend. Yet this is not why I help.</em>" Ornela looks at the silver-haired khaleesi mournfully. She tried her Common Tongue. "Your babe. It is lost."</p><p>Daenerys swallowed back her tears. Truly, she had not expected this child to live. She had not even thought of a name. In the past life, she had sought to name him Rhaego after her oldest brother Rhaegar, but knowing all of the heartache his son had caused her made that idea unfathomable now.</p><p>"<em>Can I see him?</em>"</p><p>"Yes.<em> You should say your goodbyes now, before your khal takes an arakh to his throat like my khal did mine</em>." Ornela's first child with the khal had been born a girl, she remembered. It had come with a beating as well. She shuddered to think what Drogo might do when he finds out she had given him a babe with bat-like wings and dragon scales for skin.</p><p>But the babe she placed on Daenerys' arms was not deformed as Ser Jorah had described Rhaego. He was soft and pink, with a tuft of silver-gold hair and his father's copper skin. In a few weeks, she knew his eyes would turn indigo like in her fever dream.</p><p>"<em>He lives</em>," Daenerys breathed out.</p><p>"<em>Not for long. He is weak, his insides not developed enough for survival</em>."</p><p>"<em>He must</em>."</p><p>Daenerys must have been mistaken. Her babe had lived. Surely, there was a chance now that her Drogo's child was born human and not beast. He can be who he was prophesied as. . .</p><p>Though deep in her heart, she knew he must merely be her heir and not the conqueror that she was, lest he burn down the new world she had so very much wanted to build for her friends Missandei, Grey Worm, and the people who had called her Mhysa.</p><p>"<em>If the khal does not kill him, his bloodriders will</em>," Ornela tried to dissuade her. "<em>And then they will kill him as well for his weakness. You do not want this. You must let him</em>."</p><p>Suddenly, something Ornela had said before dawned on Daenerys. "<em>You mentioned something about your mother. What do you know about blood magic?</em>"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. her third head</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daenerys had asked, not as a woman who had lived and died in her other life, but as one akin to her ancestor Daenys the Dreamer. The history of Valyria had been one of their many conversations before. Ornela is eager about many cultures beyond hers, even after being stolen, and abused to this day, which came as a surprise to Daenerys.</p><p>Highborn ladies like Sansa Stark could learn from her friend. But they would rather consider the likes of her savage and uncultured.</p><p>At first, Ornela looked intrigued by her questioning. Then, she looked terrified at the prospect of taking another life for the sake of the babe of the silver-haired khaleesi. And both women knew why.</p><p>Daenerys, horrified, immediately shattered both assumptions.</p><p>Using blood magic on their khalakka will make the Dothraki reject the son of Drogo more than they did.</p><p>Using the lifeblood of her friend — a khaleesi in her own right — for the survival of a khalakka will make even the least superstitious of the khalasar trample her and her babe under their horses.</p><p>Besides, it was unthinkable, killing a friend. An innocent. "<em>I do not intend to do you harm</em>," Daenerys whispered. She took Ornela's hand. "<em>Please, stay. I ask not for my son. He will live. This I know. I ask because of a vision I had while in the birthing bed</em>."</p><p>So she shared the tale of the night her dragons hatched, refitted into merely the experience of a seer, and withheld such facts as that she owned not one dragon egg but three, or that she will be hatching them. For some reason, Daenerys was compelled to include their demise.</p><p>"<em>So much death</em>," Ornela had tutted. "<em>For your sake, I hope that these are merely fever dreams and not of the dormant strengths of your Valyrian people. But your dream speaks true. Only death may pay for life. Death as it comes, not after life left it. A corpse is not death, but its consequence</em>."</p><p>There, Daenerys realized. . .</p><p>In her past life, both of her children had always been smaller than her mount. Daenerys simply assumed it was because Drogon was meant to lead, like she was, or that his brothers' growths were stunted by their time imprisoned in the catacombs of the Great Pyramids of Mereen. But she knew now what she had done, what she did. Why her other children had died their senseless deaths.</p><p>
  <em> <b>Only death may pay for life.</b> </em>
</p><p>She had not sacrificed two to die, but two who are already dead — her sun-and-stars, who had paid for her own life, she knew now, and her firstborn Rhaego — and one of the living in the form of Mirri Maz Duur, in the pyre.</p><p>It had only given her the value of her offering in kind.</p><p>For her murder of Khal Drogo, the maegi had paid for the dragon whose namesake was Daenerys' husband.</p><p>But Rhaegal and Viserion had always been meant to die.</p><p><em>This time,</em> Daenerys thought to herself, <em>they will not.</em></p><p></p><div>
  <p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p>
</div><div>
  <p>She called for Ser Jorah, who told her three things that happened during her strenuous birth.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>When Viserys had escaped her tent, he had come upon Doreah who he had been using for her services as a bedslave. There, she had calmed him from his fit, and they had spent the night together, drinking and fucking as they oft did.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Yet when he emerged from the tent, he was out of his mind — delusional to a point where he had never been, mindlessly attacking Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo. Ser Jorah had to intervene to subdue him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Then, Doreah came out of his tent, bloodied and beaten to near-death.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And she, too, had attacked.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Basilisk blood," Ser Jorah told Daenerys. "A rare poison causing violent insanity in its consumers. I have only ever heard of its use among the Faceless Men and this is all I know of it."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"The wine." Daenerys shook her head.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"<em>My</em> wine?" Viserys asked. He was almost like the savage dogs he had claimed the Starks to be in the stories he told her about while they were on the run as children, nearly foaming at the mouth while he tried to escape his bindings. "I told those whores not to touch my wine!"</p>
</div><p>"No, khaleesi," Ser Jorah said, ignoring Viserys. "Basilisk blood is known to be used in a paste, and used upon meats to give it a savory scent. Wine cannot possibly conceal it."</p><p>"That we know of." In the last life, Ser Jorah had not been a connoisseur of poisons. Daenerys supposed the same can be said in this life. Her heart was beating in a rapid speed, pondering on another meal entirely, eaten on an island of volcanic beaches and rough Valyrian architecture. That had meat, and had been mouthwatering, though she would have thought the same of any food after going without it for several days. "Does it kill?"</p><p>"None live long enough to spread the tale, khaleesi, though this may be due to all the dangers they pose to others than the poison itself."</p><p>"When will they be as they were?"</p><p>"We never know. Perhaps never."</p><p>Doreah had been struck on the head, arms and legs bound up in the corner of her tent. Soon she will awake, just as rabid as Viserys.</p><p>Daenerys turned to Ornela. She had spoken to the Lhazareen in riddles, but conveyed enough information for her to give valuable advice. "<em>Will they work?</em>"</p><p>"<em>We do not know the components of this poison. Two dead, you said, went into the fire, and one living. Therefore two dead and one living were you left with in the end. You know the price if the poison leads to a certain death</em>."</p><p>Death again for two of her dragons. Worse, the poisoned sacrifice could lead to poisoned dragons, mindless and cruel and unlike the intelligent children of hers they had been.</p><p>Ser Jorah was confused.</p><p>Yet he himself promised to oversee the construction of the wide crates Daenerys then instructed him and her khas to create at utmost secrecy.</p><p>Ornela was the last to leave. She and Daenerys shared a look.</p><p>"<em>Regardless of their fates</em>," Ornela had said, "<em>Your third head is mine to give</em>."</p><p></p><div>
  <p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p>
</div><div>
  <p>When they left, the shadow of Drogo fell upon her tent.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Daenerys spoke first.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"<em>Is it true, my sun-and-stars?</em>"</p>
</div><p>Daenerys had pretended not to know the Dothraki language weeks into her marriage until Irri and Jhiqui offered to teach her. During this, she became a fast learner, impressing both of her handmaidens and Drogo, who would correct her intentional mistakes with the ghost of a smile on his face.</p><p>Now she had progressed enough to use it flawlessly, and flawless it must be. All her attention needed to be on convincing Drogo to spare their son.</p><p>"<em>What is true?</em>"</p><p>"<em>That you must snuff the life of our firstborn son for the whims of men</em>."</p><p>She kept her eyes on him, strong but visibly saddened. Viserys could only be pleased by the sight of a simpering maiden, fearful and meek. Jon Snow wanted to see only democracy from her and none of the authoritativeness afforded by her station as <em>their</em> queen as soon as the two of them arrived in Winterfell, lest he and his ungrateful Northerners see the Mad King Aerys in her.</p><p>But her sun-and-stars had loved her for everything else. He can stand to see how much she will fight for their babe.</p><p>"<em>Come and see</em>," she beckoned Drogo to her bedside. "<em>We have ourselves a khalakka</em>."</p><p>"<em>He looks like you, moon of my life. You were right</em>." He stroked his son's cheek with all the softness his large hands can muster, and Daenerys felt her heart break at the thought of him in the Night Lands with Rhaego, their positions reversed.</p><p>Daenerys had told him of her visions. Not of her fever dream from her past life after she had lost the babe, where he was consumed by fire, but of the one in the House of the Undying.</p><p>A perfect mix of the two of them — his face and her coloring, his skin and her texture. Behind him had been a banner with a stallion among flames, and the rubbles of destruction from war. <em>Nations conquered</em>, Mirri Maz Duur had promised her murder of him prevented.</p><p>They had been lying on the grass the night she told her tale, with her in his arms and them away from the prying eyes of his khalasar. A small spot that was unassuming enough for everyone else to ignore, but had become their own. And Drogo had kissed her in a manner that made her toes curl when her words concluded, whispered praises that never mention their legendary son. Only her.</p><p>"As you said," she now reminded him, using words she had described herself with — words that he had no way of knowing, but repeated underneath the stars, "I am no ordinary woman. My dreams come true."</p><p>"<em>Your dreams are no dreams</em>."</p><p>A pit in her stomach dropped.</p><p>She had intended to manipulate him to let her execute any in his khalasar that went against their son's survival, so that she may use them to wake up her stone children in a blood ritual he may end up despising her for.</p><p>But if he saw right through her, all those plans were now ruined.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>don't mind me editing all dem fonts✌😗 ps if it's in dothraki, it's in italics and between quotation marks 😇</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. her old khal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>if y'all don't like the twist here idek i'm no writer 🙃 notes at the end to explain my ✨thought process✨</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"<em>You do not know</em>," Drogo grunted. "<em>Many moons have you been mine and I yours. . . and you have yet to notice</em>."</p><p>The familiar Westerosi phrase from the Faith of the Seven's marital vows translated in the Dothraki language gave her pause. Daenerys distinctly remembered asking one Westerosi maester of it when she thought she was in love with Jon Snow.</p><p>Drogo should not know such a vow.</p><p>Something was not right.</p><p>She stared at the hulk of man that had effectively cornered her in her place of rest. Familiar may be his features, but Daenerys feared she knew not the true being who lurked underneath.</p><p>
  <em>A Faceless Man.</em>
</p><p>Daenerys fought the urge to scream. With these assassins, resistance was futile. Calling more people will only endanger them all. Her life was forfeit either way. She accepted this.</p><p>Her violet eyes cooled.</p><p>A queenly mask she was yet to use in this new life held her together like a second skin.</p><p>She had cheated death once. She had come back to a life that she had done before. Perhaps death finally came to take its due.</p><p>
  <em>Valar morghulis.</em>
</p><p>Death had surely taken her husband's face now. And all she had planned to preserve his life, and his protection of herself and her khalasar of the past, would be for naught.</p><p>Drogo furrowed his eyebrows at her sudden change in demeanor.</p><p>"<em>What do you want with me?</em>" Daenerys asked.</p><p>"<em>You.</em>"</p><p>She hid her shudder well. "<em>That is not an option.</em>"</p><p>Drogo had never taken advantage of her in this life. Being gentle was not ingrained in his culture, but he had always asked permission before he initiated their couplings. When she showed signs of uncertainty, he was content to hold her in his arms and drift off to a dreamless sleep. It was such a difference from the nights of the past when he was relentless and rough, when her feelings had never come into consideration and she oft cried herself to sleep.</p><p>Many history Daenerys was willing to repeat for the same result but not this. Never this.</p><p>She had been shamed and betrayed. That was bound to repeat in this life. Such was life. But raped and defiled she will be no longer.</p><p>Especially not with an assassin who had killed and stolen Drogo's face.</p><p>"<em>What have you done with my khal?</em>"</p><p>"<em>Your khal. . .</em>" he repeated, the corner of his mouth curving, "<em>refused to enter the Night Lands without you</em>."</p><p>Daenerys chilled at the words she had heard long ago — in another life, in another dream, in the House of the Undying.</p><p>Was he there again? Sitting in that hut, warm even with winter raging outside, their babe in his lap while he waited for her?</p><p>She hated the thought of a Faceless Man having stolen not only his face, but also his words. It hurt.</p><p>He took her hand. In her shock, she let him. "<em>He told the Great Stallion to fuck himself. Then he came back here to wait for you.</em>"</p><p>He brought the back of her hand to his lips, giving it the ghost of a kiss. "<em>At first I thought this was a dream. Your dream, my dream. . . That you still live, while I have died, and that lifetimes more must I wait before I would behold you once again. That your people of Westeros and Essos would never give you back to me.</em></p><p><em>But when I beheld you in the manse of the fat magister,</em>" Drogo continued, "<em>I saw recognition in your eyes, the same that I saw in your eyes when you went on top of me in our wedding night. The scared young maiden they had given to me would not have been so bold.</em>"</p><p>Tears filled her eyes as she laughed. Whether in happiness or confusion, she did not yet know.</p><p>Could it be. . .</p><p>"<em>Is it you? Is it truly you, my sun-and-stars, and not a Faceless Man in your skin?</em>"</p><p>Drogo grunted in affirmation.</p><p>"You remember," Daenerys gasped. She was not alone in this new world. She was beside herself in joy. "How is this possible?"</p><p>"<em>I know not how it happened</em>. <em>Though I know what happened. . . to you.</em></p><p><em>Rhaego had watched you in the fires. Our son told me about the woman — the queen — you have become. How you have brought back mounts that breathe fire, and that yours is named after me</em>." He paused. There was no word to thank someone in Dothraki. "<em>All of your conquests and defeats. . . To us, it was known. How the men in stone houses spat at your feet as you and your peoples fought and bled for the men of solid water. How they had used our people as a shield, in spite of our gift of defending their home. And that after all this, only a knife to the heart they have given you in kind</em>."</p><p>Daenerys felt dizzy. She did not know how to take all of this in. "<em>You. . . And Rhaego. . . You saw me</em>," she cried. "<em>As I burned all those people. When I lost my mind</em>."</p><p>"<em>Much of your Westerosi values are lost to us, moon of my life</em>," he said. "<em>Violence is all the Dothraki know. What a khal would have done with those mounts of yours would have paled in comparison</em>. <em>What all men wearing iron suits could have done when in your shoes would not have been worse. I cannot fault you for it. My love for you is unchanged by it.</em>"</p><p>"<em>But that was not the queen I wanted to be</em>," she mumbled. Drogo was right that their morals diverged. "<em>They were innocent. Much like the shepherds that were Lhazareen.</em>"</p><p>Mentioning the Lhazareens seemed to have reminded Drogo of something as he created distance between them.</p><p>"<em>I have done great a many wrongs to you</em>, Daenerys Stormborn." A shot of lightning went down her spine when he said this. No matter how rough his pronunciation was — much like the Dothraki language <em>— </em>his words were the sweetest she had ever heard, for he had finally spoken her name. She never knew she had needed him to say her name. "<em>Much of your misery have been because of me</em>."</p><p>"<em>Do not say that,</em>" Daenerys insisted. "<em>You make me happy</em>."</p><p>Her husband had been a balm to her hurt. Having him back comforted her from her loss.</p><p>She loved him. Not with the burning passion she had with Jon Snow, but a love tender. It was enough.</p><p>"<em>I have watched you in your last life</em>," Drogo went on. "<em>I have realized this: In the beginning, I have done to you many times the despicable acts you later sought to obliterate from all khalasar once you had united the </em><em>Dothraki</em>."</p><p>There were only few commands she had given the Dothraki of this nature.</p><p>Rape. He was talking about rape.</p><p>"<em>You had taken women, Lhazareen and slaves, into your care so that they will not be mounted by my riders when we have reaved that town where a maegi lived. I did not understand this. When you had requested they be given to you, I had only humored you</em> <em>for you had my heart. Not because I believed in your cause.</em></p><p><em>Us</em> <em>Dothraki only know violence</em>," he admitted. "<em>We were not raised as the men you have taken into your bed</em> <em>— like the man you had loved enough to die for.</em>" Jon. "<em>I wish I could be selfless enough to tell you I could let you go if your heart still belonged to him, but I am not a good man. But I could learn, moon of my life. I could learn</em>. <em>To be part of the better world you wanted. And I want to be worthy of you.</em></p><p><em>Not just a buyer </em><em>who was</em><em> responsible for all the horrors you described atop your throne of stone,</em>" which Daenerys recognized as Dragonstone, "<em>but your partner.</em><em> Your lover. Someday, I want you to. . .</em>" He swallowed. "<em>I love you</em>."</p><p>"<em>And I you</em>." What did Drogo mean?</p><p>"<em>You care for me. But you have gone through a world wherein I was long gone. You can love me, someday, but you need time to. I understand. I can wait</em>."</p><p>Daenerys was confused, but set their issues aside. There would be time to discuss that. She cupped his cheek. "<em>It would give me no greater joy to have you by my side as a learning man</em>. <em>Yet you do not sound like yourself. This feels too much like a dream still.</em>"</p><p>"<em>Then we shall kill the man who wakes us</em>," Drogo tells her, amusement in his tone.</p><p>Daenerys laughed. Drogo was not a man of many jests, but that was well-aimed. She complimented him so, before she leaned over and kissed him — slow and steady <em>— </em>over the khalakka in her arms.</p><p>"<em>Whichever one of you is the Stallion who Mounts the World</em>," Drogo said when they separated, looking upon their son, "<em>my loyalty is yours both</em>."</p><p>The khalakka stared at his parents with lidded eyes. Daenerys loved it whenever she caught his attention. "<em>What should we name him? Should our son have the same name?</em>"</p><p>She really did not want Rhaegar to be his namesake.</p><p>"<em>Rhaego is not his name</em>," Drogo said. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "<em>Do you remember him? He who I held inside the hut?</em>"</p><p>Daenerys was ashamed to admit she remembered Drogo more, despite the yearning she felt for her son.</p><p>"<em>He did not have violet eyes, like in your dreams, nor silver-gold hair. Rhaego had my eyes and hair, with your skin and face.</em>"</p><p>Daenerys understood. This cannot be Rhaego, for he had known their other Rhaego. Tears started to fall down her cheeks. "<em>This one and that one are not the same, are they?</em>"</p><p>Will her khalakka of the past never ride in the Great Grass Sea? Will he never behold the wonders of Essos, inherit the better world she will be making for him? Would he be alone now that Daenerys had taken Drogo, his father, from him?</p><p>"<em>I do not know</em>." Drogo carried his khaleesi into his arms to embrace their little family as she cried. "<em>I do not know</em>."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>y'all rly didn't think i'mma go with canon-typical rapist drogo did ya? major ooc but they cute 💁💅 also the sadist in me had him know daario and jon was making his one true love happy in bed while he waited for her in their afterlife retirement home so he had his hell lmao 😈🔥 i'm assuming he wasn't happy with that since they weren't his bloodriders. . . or even if they were, that was the moon of HIS life, you know?</p><p>that's kinda why i didn't write too much of their time together in the past chapters too 🤐 like dany is so focused on going through the motions, she doesn't think too much of the changes in drogo's behavior and just thinks its because he fell in love with her too early 😳</p><p>so tldr this is where the real drogo/dany romance starts, ehehe</p><p>(if ur early and saw the message in this place don't worry i figured it out lol)</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. her new world</h2></a>
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    <p>With Drogo's blessing, Daenerys called their babe Vaelian.</p><p>After Viserys, whose fate after being overwhelmed by poison remained to be uncertain, and the good-sister that she had never met, Elia Martell.</p><p>Elia Targaryen, in truth, if her brother Prince Rhaegar did not dishonor their union by setting her aside for Lyanna Stark.</p><p>Vaelian Targaryen, blood of Dothraki and of Old Valyria, will not be raised to make the same mistake.</p><p>He will bring back glory and honor to House Targaryen in ways his mother, his grandfather, and his uncles failed to do in their days.</p><p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p><p></p><div>
  <p>In the Red Keep, a spymaster plotted.</p>
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  <p>News of the successful assassination of Viserys Targaryen had reached his ears, and the Baratheon king had not wasted his time celebrating with his wines and whores.</p>
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  <p>Yet a matter troubled him so.</p>
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  <p>With the help of his good-brother, magister Illyrio Mopatis, the Mad King's daughter had been given to Khal Drogo, a brute of a horselord,  with hopes that their union would break the princess in case she had survived the poisons they had sent.</p>
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  <p>King Robert thought her a threat, of course, with her husband leading a horde 40,000 strong, but he was not privy to the webs which the Spider had spun.</p>
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  <p>Without her maidenhead, she was not as tempting of a wife for either Aegon or any ambitious lord who wanted to be king. Her Dothraki husband would fight to keep her, and even if she were widowed, she would be sent off to the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen where all their crones are kept. She could never rebel there.</p>
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  <p>And, with the khal's abuse of her, any desire to take the Iron Throne for her son or herself would be quelled. What would be left of it will never be aided by her husband's people, whose fears of ocean water would not allow them to cross the Narrow Sea.</p>
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  <p>It had been perfect. A plan absolute.</p>
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  <p>But Jorah Mormont reported that the savage had been smitten by his silver-haired princess, that he had grown to love her like never before seen in his culture. That he had not laid a hand to her, or abused her in any way that he had anticipated, allowing Daenerys to thrive. More so, their union became a deterrent for the man who <em>did</em> abuse her, and the princess grew out of her brother's reach.</p>
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  <p>And the princess had given birth to a prince. Small, and underdeveloped, but a living royal all the same.</p>
</div><p><em>A threat</em><em> to the Iron Throne</em>.</p><p>They would never cross the Narrow Sea. That much was true. However, there were many other ways to use the Dothraki in a quest for Westeros.</p><p>Among the gifts the Dothraki received from the Masters of Essos were slaves.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>With enough sway over Khal Drogo, those same slaves can have "soldier" before their name.</p>
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  <p>Varys Blackfyre dipped his quill in ink, and began to write.</p>
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  <p>〰⠀♛⠀〰</p>
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  <p>In the Tower of the Hand, a Northern lord received a messenger riding from Winterfell, a parchment in his hand.</p>
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  <p>The seal was unbroken.</p>
</div><p><em>The stag</em> <em> did not sire cubs, though he had taken a lioness to mate. But this lioness will not think twice when she comes for the throats of her prey </em> <em>—</em> <em> and prey is the wolf who knows that the truth of the cubs is in their mane.</em></p><p><em>Howl too soon, and her plate would fill with furs and antlers.</em> <em>Bark to the pups, and they will howl in your place. But if</em> <em>the hand surrenders its hold, the head can stay on its shoulders long enough to return where the hot springs warm the stones.</em></p><p>
  <em>Heed a warning for the survival of the pack, lest lone wolves be left of it. The white wolf at the wall needs to know his mother's kin yet lives.</em>
</p><p>"Who was its sender?"</p><p>Ned Stark was not the type of man to believe any such unknown source of information. But a foreboding feeling was in his gut with the abrupt ending of this message. It was no riddle. And whoever sent it knew what they were saying.</p><p>Every word of it.</p><p>"Lady Catelyn had hoped you can tell us, my lord," the man replied, looking  hesitant. "But the ship this came from is owned by a merchant in Essos."</p><p>No doubt it was a Targaryen loyalist. Perhaps Jon Connington, who he had heard was also in love with Lyanna's Silver Prince. He would want the son of Rhaegar on the Iron Throne. But it was said by many that he had died in an early grave at Essos, so Ned knew not if he truly had sent him this.</p><p>There was also the matter of how this sender knew the Lannister queen was cuckolding the king. Ned had thought he was being discreet with the way he gathered information, but if a man in another continent knew something as powerful as this, yet had not used it in their own agenda, it spoke of a danger that Ned cannot let his daughters be a victim of.</p><p>Robert was his friend — his <em>king</em> <em>— </em>but Sansa and Arya were his blood, more so than Jon. If Ned can lie for Lyanna's hidden prince, he will do more for his children.</p><p>So much more.</p><p>"I thank you for bringing this to me. Swear that you say a word of this to no one," he told the Northern rider.</p><p>"My lady had already asked this of me. But by the Old Gods, I swear it."</p><p>"Good. You are dismissed."</p><p>Ned Stark had come to King's Landing searching for answers over Jon Arryn and his death. And now he must leave it with more questions.</p><p>For if this message was to be believed, Queen Cersei of House Lannister was a dangerous woman. And that any of his plans to plead with her to give up her children's crowns and flee King's Landing before he told the king of the illegitimacy of the royal princes and princess would end in his death.</p><p>So when the golden-haired queen had approached him as he crouched in the godswood, the meeting they had set in progress, and Cersei told Ned that, "Perhaps it's time to go home. The South doesn't seem to agree with you..."</p><p>He still replied, "I know the truth."</p><p>But it was followed with a pause then, "You are right, my queen," though her royal title tasted like ash in his mouth. "Starks don't fare so well in the South. With your leave — and the king's — I would like to resign from the position of Hand."</p><p>"I understand. Yet why the secrecy, my lord? Surely you have not asked me to come all this way to announce such a matter, which is known to all Small Council members."</p><p>Ned paused. He needed to do better. Cersei was more perceptive than he thought.</p><p>"My daughter Sansa is besotted with the Prince Joffrey. This is not a talk I want her to be privy to. . . For I must ask for your help to convince her of the effects of my resignation. I fear she was not amenable to my words when I told her of our departure."</p><p>"Departure? You have planned to take the prince's betrothed long before you asked permission from myself and the king? Your resignation do not go hand in hand with the children's betrothal."</p><p><em>Gods be good. </em>Ned was not good with the Southron play on words, and less with lies.</p><p>"Your Grace," he said, "Forgive me. Your prince is worthy of the fairest ladies in the land, and my Sansa is arguably a strong contender. . . But when King Robert asked me on his son's behalf for her hand, I agreed thinking as a friend to another, not with the considerations of what an alliance of this magnitude meant. I had failed to see that my daughter, though she may dream of becoming like yourself, had no proper training to be a lady in court, much less to be someday the queen consort."</p><p>"She can learn. Your Lady Catelyn had raised the girl well. A few moons or so should be enough to acclimate the girl to the going-ons of the capital."</p><p>The queen was thinking ahead. If the North were ever to rebel, having that daughter in the capital will turn her into a hostage. It was how King Aerys kept the Dornish in line with Princess Elia Martell.</p><p>"Even so, the North may be the largest of Seven Kingdoms, but we have none to offer. As the friend of a king, it will bring me the greatest joy to unite our Houses, but as the Hand of the King, I had been thinking in a more political sense. And the Baratheon dynasty is young still."</p><p>"It sounds to me like you anticipate a rebellion. I would hope there is none in the works for your lands."</p><p>He knew not what to say to that. He only shook his head, and hoped that the queen would not be perceptive enough to see through that as well.</p><p>Ned remembered the lineages in the book his foster father Jon Arryn had died for. "The Targaryens had made alliances with Lord Paramounts and lords alike in a quest to solidify their 300-year reign. Even Robert's right to rule was not based upon his rebellion, but the fact that he is descended from Rhaelle Targaryen.</p><p>My loyalty to the Baratheon blood is strong," Ned confirmed. "But most of the other lords are not. House Tyrell, for example, had beseiged our king's ancestral castle, Storm's End, 'til the war is won. I might have differences with Robert on how to deal with the Targaryen exiles, but their loyalists will not be a threat to his regime if they are bound to it. In marriage. I hear that Lord Mace has a daughter of age — Lady Margaery. This would be more of an advantageous match."</p><p>"I agree. Any learned lord does know such things." Queen Cersei's tone was flippant. To her, Ned was wasting her time, and he was not entirely sure she believed him. "Alas, my husband is no such lord. He cares for all of the other frivolous things. But I can see that you and I are on the same page.</p><p>You know, when we were children, my brother and I looked so much alike, we would switch clothing so that I may take lessons in his stead. Jaime always found letters difficult to read. Yet as many as we shared in life, this trouble I did not share with him. And so we split our father's likeness; Jaime with his sword, and I, with his mind."</p><p>Ned smiled in remembrance. "If my Arya had a twin, she would do the same, but for a different reason."</p><p>Politely, Cersei chuckled. Her green eyes remained as sharp as daggers. "What would you have done with her if she had?"</p><p>"Let her think she had fooled us, for a time. Wolf blood make us Starks quite stubborn when we put our mind to an interest."</p><p>"Wouldn't you have punished her?"</p><p>"I suppose I would have given her a stern warning, and made her help in the kitchens for a week. But as long as she spent some time learning with her septa, I would have turned a blind eye to it from time to time."</p><p>Cersei regarded him carefully.</p><p>"Very well. I am certain Sansa will be amenable to <em>my </em>words, even though her poor heart will be broken in the process. I could offer my help in this regard. Procure a formal resignation written in your hand. I shall tell your Sansa what she needs to hear."</p><p>In his heart, Ned asked Robert for his forgiveness. He knew he planned on coming back, but with an army and a plan to properly depose the Lannister hold. He did not mean to leave him in this viper's nest forever.</p><p>He did not mean to leave Jon Arryn's murder unsolved.</p><p>But. . .</p><p>The teaching of the falcon demanded that he execute the original plan, but the wolf blood must first take care of its own.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i wonder who sent the letter hmmmmm 🤔😏</p><p>as y'all can see cersei is suspicious (even though she agrees with ned for now), varys plots again, and ned stark is scared shitless</p><p>don't expect too much westerosi chapters, i'll only do it every time dany's actions cause any changes in canon 😌💟</p><p>as for the name, i've seen every traditional targ names there is in fanfics so i decided to go a bit differently with new rhaego. and it's realistic cuz irl dany and her mama are prolly the family who make up names like "ashleigh" or "rayleigh" (noah fence) to keep it going for generations 😂 i mean. . . rhaelle, rhaella, rhaegar, rhaenys, RHAEGO? giving me ed, edd, and eddie teas 🐸☕</p><p>expect the same fuckery from the names i'm giving the dragons and other kids 😉</p><p>also i love how dany's on her second life and disregarded "rhaego" as a baby name because of rhaegar and not because. . . you know, "rhae" is a derogatory word in dothraki 😂 i mean they call viserys "khal rhae mar" which means sorefoot king and it still hasn't sunk in for dany i- 💀</p>
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